The Global Environmental Social Business (GESB) and its Hungarian representative DVD - Socially and Environmentally Aware Project and Business Development LLC(DVD LLC, Hungary) greets its visitors at www.gesb.eu. The webpage is continuously under construction so please return periodically for any news, products and events.

Our enterprise has made it its goal to create a market that assures for the partners the possibility to overcome the hardship dictated by the rise in energy need and energy poverty. Furthermore, to help our clients create a sustainable and decent home.  We do all this by entering in active partnership with programmes at the national, international and European level which have a positive impact either socially or environmentally. The company builds partnerships for energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency, housing, financing, information dissemination programmes. As an integrated company we do have a share in cultural and scientific work and we have started to support documentaries, art movie projects, research into psychology and sociology. We can also mention developments like supporting medical research programmes and to outline our environmental goals we work together with universities and partners from the science field on environmental studies.

Besides our green involvement a very important characteristic of our company is that as a social business it does not strive for extra profit and short term investment returns. As sustainability is one of our major principles we reinvest our earnings in new projects so the number of the people affected by the positive impact of our projects can grow. Our company’s inner policy dictates that we guarantee equal opportunities for all as an anti-discriminitive principle. We do this because we cannot imagine sustainable development without an integrated society where differences are streams of creating value.

In January 2008 the Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus introduced a new concept in the business lexicon; the social business. He defines this type of company as one that strives for social inclusion in its business target and does not spread the gains among the shareholders but rather it reinvests these gains. There is a second definition for this concept when the people included as clients in the social business can gain micro share in these companies and by these shares they can gain ownership and profit. In 2005 when we created our pilot company in Hungary this was exactly our goal. We wanted to try to create a company owned by private individuals and experiment to see whether it could work as a social business and be successfully developed. Our answer after three years is that although it is not a simple issue and there is a great need for enthusiasm, success is possible. All those goals and principles that were once a utopia today are more and more present in business circles. These were the equal opportunities for all, anti-discriminatory principles, environmental awareness, climate change, and the motivation of the social strata of society. These were mere dreams because no-one believed in them. Today we know that without equal opportunities for all we lose the much needed creative human resources. Climate change has a huge impact on the market and on the economy, both globally and regionally. The demand for energy grows every day and the majority of us belong to the middle to low income group. Today there is a general awareness that these “philanthropic” goals are existential issues and our daily income may depend on them.

We hope you will spend a pleasant time looking through our webpage by clicking on different menu points to get to know better the plans of our company, its goals and roles on different points of the globe, the people representing the company, the co-workers, its principles and the new possibilities for people searching for a job. You can download our material from our conferences and workshops in the news section. You can write to us and ask us questions and make comments, find out about our open programmes and how you can be at the events and of course you can also inform yourselves of our services.

GESB- Adrian Balaci: summary of the presentation on „Energy Saving in Housing and Communal Economy”

July 4-10, 2010 Venice

According to fossil fuel experts, the extraction of Oil and Gas cannot keep up with the increasing demands, and by 2012, the demand will be greater than the available quantity of fuel. In December 2009 managing director of PetroBras, has been one of the first oil business leader to admit that this seems to be an unavoidable fact. This statement is supported also by the biggest energy agency, the International Energy Agency, who predicts that after 2011 demand will overpower availability. Since 2007 fuel prices have increased so much in central Asia, that by 2008-2009 more than 2 million of people were suffering from hunger. According to the World Bank report east-Europe is under the pressure of suffering a major energy crisis by 2015, and they also predict that by latest 2030 Russia will have to import more Oil and Gas than it exports.

The built environment is responsible for about 40% of CO2 emissions, the main molecule involved in the Global Climate Change. We at the GESB think that Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources should be our priorities when it comes to the housing sector, since most of these investments have a negative cost. EE and RES seem to be the cure for both fuel and energy-poverty as well as the Global Climate Change. Among all the CO2 emitters, the housing sector seems to be the easiest to deal with, both from a technological point of view as well as a social demand.

The main barrier to these improvements, is financing and policy. This is the reason why our company has specialised in developing financing programs and schemes to facilitate the investment in this sector.There are several schemes that have a proven track record.

Based on the experience of 12 years in Hungary, we know now that subsidies are needed, as they work as both social support as well as incentives to drive the market. But subsidies can never cover more that 33% of the investment, because if they do, they become too expensive for the government as well as the local authorities.

We always recommend that two thirds of the investment need should come from commercial banks, in form of affordable loans. Third-party financing schemes are proven to be the most efficient. Both “Revolving Guarantee Funds” and “ESCO” can offer solutions to these problems.

Without a clear financial background no governmental or local policy can be implemented successfully. We have witnessed many such experiments, and we have seen them fail. There is also need of a long term strategy, the programs should run for many years, the framework should be stable and reliable, otherwise the market that needs to be created and sustained for these investments to happen, cannot grow.

Housing has the negative potential to lock carbon in the process if the target of efficiency is below 60% of energy consumption reduction. Housing also has the positive potential of empowering people that poses only basic education through the eco-refurbishment job market.

For an efficient policy to work, you need political will, but mostly, high expertise and experience.